AVAILABLE modestly-priced 'fruity' sheng ??

Have a handful of samples and two bricks thus far.
My tastes run towards lighter, 'fruity' cider-like shengs rather than musky, 'mushroomy' ones.

I rather like the inexpensive 2008 Bulang Arbor brick (no longer available at puerhShop) and the Yi Wu Yeh Cha of Chen Guang-Ho Tang at Hou de, which at about $50/357g beeng, is a bit steep for me. I find puerhShop's dirt-cheap 2007 Xiaguan Tibetan flame brick okay, but not something I think I'd purchase again.

By modestly priced, I mean about 10¢/g (so it costs less than 75¢ to load up a 3-4 oz. yi-xing).

I used 5 grams of tea in a 120 ml. yixing pot. Water brought to a roaring boil and let sit for 10 seconds. two rinses of 5 seconds each.

First brew was for 15 seconds. Aroma is sweet and floral then turns slightly smokey. This is defiantly an interesting tea, as the aroma foreshadowed there actually is no smokiness in this brew. It starts out sweet with fruit: cherry, apricot. Then it takes on a very slight hay flavor as found in younger sheengs. The hay dissipates quickly revealing a slight amount of astringency, this begins to taste more woody like oak. I could detect a very slight amount of tobacco taste in it.

Second brew was for 20 seconds. The aroma this time contained no smokiness but instead smelled as the first one tasted, fruits and wood, a very sweet calming aroma. The brew is less smooth this time with a faint smokey flavor peering through tastes of hay and wood. The fruit interestingly does not reveal itself in this flavor. overall not as complex and smooth as the first brew.

Third brew was for 15 seconds hoping to alleviate some of the astringency as found in the second. Aroma is mostly woody with some fruit and floral notes. A very heavy and complex aroma. The tea has settled out a lot more compared to the second steep. The flavor is very sweet with the taste of fruit mostly cherry pronouncing itself after a slight woody flavor. No astringency found in this brew. It is sweet and smooth throughout the whole cup.

Conclusion: Over all I was very impressed with this tea. It takes you all over the place with its many complex flavors. It would be hard to see why anybody would dislike this s tea as it its most notes of a young and slightly aged pu erh would. The neat thing is, is how well these different flavors blended together to actually compliment each other as. This tea is defiantly my favorite sheeng and can be purchased for about $22. All and all a very good tea for the price.

In my very non-expert opinion, it's a very good value for $24/cake, and it even tastes pretty pleasant now. It doesn't have the smokey taste that some Yi-Wu has, and (while everyone has their own definition of "fruity"), I would say it has a somewhat fruity taste. The tea smells great, looks great, and based on the one time I brewed it so far, tastes great.

Yi Wu Yeh Cha of Chen Guang-Ho Tang at Hou de, which at about $50/357g beeng, is a bit steep for me.

Just keep in mind that 357g is almost 1 pound of tea, and depending on how you brew, should make a *lot* of tea. For any type of tea other than pu'er, ~ $50-60/lb is cheap to moderate, and high-end green teas and oolongs will almost certainly be way more than this per lb, even in China, and definitely here in the US. Also, the shipping from Guang on that $47.50 cake will probably be cheaper and faster than shipping it from China. I say, if you like it, buy a few cakes - one for now, and save the rest for aging. You'll thank yourself later after the price goes up even more.